P150EM w/ 970m results. Heaven 4.0 and Firestrike

So I was pretty bummed that I couldn't get the 970m working well with Win10. But now I have it up and running on Win7 I have been able to run some benchmarks overclock a bit and see how it fairs.


Specs:
P150EM
CPU: 3610QM
GPU: 970m 6GB (ASIC: 74.4%)
RAM: Kingston Hyper X PnP 1866 4GB x4 (16GB)
HDD: 850 EVO 500GB
Prema v2 bios and v2 vbios
*The cooling system: repaste with Arctic Silver and aluminum foil for GPU heatsink/fan mod
PSU: stock 180w
nvidia 362.00 GPU driver

Unigine Heaven 4.0
Render: Direct3D11
Mode: 1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset: Custom
Quality: Ultra
Tessellation: Extreme

FPS: 39.1
Score: 985
Min FPS: 21.6
Max FPS: 86.7

* That is with +162 core and +300 Mem, stock voltage and highest temp running Heaven at 73 degrees. This is now my regular stable profile.

From what I can find with other people's scores online that is roughly comparable to a 770, 960, 380. So I am pretty happy with that!

***Disclaimer...I understand this is a synthetic benchmark and in game results will vary.....***


Now for Firestrike:
Stock non-overclock results:
Overall: 6486
GPU: 7643
Physics: 7510

OC:
Highest overall score:
Overall: 7535
GPU: 8935
Physics: 8296
Core + 208 Mem +?? Forgot (look at the picture..) *stock voltage* got up to 86 degrees.

With stock voltage I couldn't get the core more then + 212 before the drivers would crash. With that my highest GPU score for firestrike was 9011. But for some reason overall score dropped to 7440ish.
I tried unlocking voltage but it still seemed grayed out in Afterburner, oh well.

Conclusion:
Pretty happy with my budget gaming laptop! As for cost, with luck and notebookreview members selling their parts I got the P150EM for $450 and the 970m for $280, total cost of $730. I got the RAM and HDD from my old P150HM with 6990m that wasn't pushing the frame rates i hoped for, even though I am more a casual gamer. Now I can sit back enjoy some good 1080p gaming - or dial down the graphics just a bit for my 21:9 UltraWide LG 25UM57-P and play my old HL2, Bioshock (1,2,3), L4D2, or NFS games. Or even some new games that arn't as graphically challenging like Firewatch. =)

For me its perfect considering I don't play the newest AAA titles, but playing old games at max setting and ultrawide like HL2 while pushing high frame rates is pretty fun! Just headphones and dim the lights make it a great experience.

Also for those of you who get a chance to also upgrade your P150EM, make sure to support Prema or this wouldn't be possible! =P
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UPDATE 1:
Picked up a 3820qm!!!

Can't wait to try it. It will take a while before I get to use it though.

On a different note, some more benchmark results.

my comfortable overclock is +245 core +500 Ram with +25 for voltage

Firestrike:
GPU score: 9202
General: 7720
(details in the attached pic)
High Temp: 84C

Unigine Heaven 4.0
Score: 1052
FPS: 41.8
(details in the attached pic)
High Temp: 78C

With this basic overclock its pretty solid and the performance increase is pretty nice!

After that the return for pushing clocks higher for my system isn't that beneficial vs temps

with +303 core +450 ram +68 voltage the return is minimal.

Firestrike:
GPU score: 9431
General: 7843
(details in the attached pic)
High Temp: 90C

Unigine Heaven 4.0
Score: 1067
FPS: 42.4
(details in the attached pic)
High Temp: 85C

It is interesting to note that even though the Unigine score is higher my Min FPS went from 17ish to 15.9 so even though the overall score is higher the min FPS is lower.

I can't find the pic right now but highest GPU score for Firestrike was 96xx but overall score was lower then the 7720 from a lot lower score. it seems to hit a wall or something.

Anyways with pascal just being unveiled I am hoping for in a year or two mxm pascal card support! haha.

I also got lucky enough to pick up a barebone P370EM for 300ish so the hardware from my P150EM will migrate to the P370EM in a couple months. Looking forward to see how it is.

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UPDATE 2:
Steam Sales Rule!! Reason I say this is because 3DMark was for sale for $5, and according to this article:
http://videocardz.com/61272/3dmark-time-spy-supports-asynchronous-computing
I should also have access to the DX12 Benchmark when it comes out too.

I got a new high score! (This is only a benchmark setting, not for regular gaming!)
Core + 350
VRAM +450
CoreVoltage mV +100

GPU score: 9598 - Right in the 980m territory.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8946892

Only problem is that it runs hot. With just the FireStrike 1.1 benchmark it gets up to mid 80's - the problem is if I run a stress test the temps keep slowly creeping up and up, when it hit 90 and was only 5min on the stress test I stopped it. If I can find a way to properly cool the GPU this might be a theoretical setting I can run it at!

For now my gaming setting is:
Core +243
VRAM +363
CoreVoltage mV +25
GPU score: 9024
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8947490

Works great and is a nice boost is FPS!
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Small update 4:

New top score:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/9059830

GPU:9690
Total:7939

Seems like my current memory max is +543 - anything more and artifacts show up.

Also in contrast to when I started and I couldn't break +212 core on stock voltage and now I can run +230 on core with stock voltage..... ???

I wanna break 10k GPU!! haha.

 

It's worth keeping an eye out for a cheap 3720qm or 3740qm.

 

How much of a difference will that make, in actual gameplay? I have been looking for a 3720qm or above honestly speaking. Cheapest I saw here on notebookreview was $140 for a 3740qm. On ebay I can find a 3720qm for 140ish if patient and now the cheapest 3740qm is 199. From what I understand for me the performance bump really isn't worth that right now. But please tell me what you think, and if I am wrong!

Thanks.

 

It depends on the game really, and with the 37xx series and above you get a nice bump in stock speeds and the ability to overclock. It's why I said keep an eye out rather than you must get it as there is a difference but it's not game changing.

 

Ahhh I see. Ya thanks, I will keep an eye out. I found a copper heatsink for the CPU too, so I wouldn't mind trying to overclock the 3720qm and up either if I find one for cheap enough.

 

They can add 4 turbo bins (400mhz) to each turbo for each active core count.

 

Picked up a 3820qm!!!

Can't wait to try it. It will take a while before I get to use it though.

On a different note, some more benchmark results.

my comfortable overclock is +245 core +500 Ram with +25 for voltage

Firestrike:
GPU score: 9202
General: 7720
(details in the attached pic)
High Temp: 84C

Unigine Heaven 4.0
Score: 1052
FPS: 41.8
(details in the attached pic)
High Temp: 78C

With this basic overclock its pretty solid and the performance increase is pretty nice!

After that the return for pushing clocks higher for my system isn't that beneficial vs temps

with +303 core +450 ram +68 voltage the return is minimal.

Firestrike:
GPU score: 9431
General: 7843
(details in the attached pic)
High Temp: 90C

Unigine Heaven 4.0
Score: 1067
FPS: 42.4
(details in the attached pic)
High Temp: 85C

It is interesting to note that even though the Unigine score is higher my Min FPS went from 17ish to 15.9 so even though the overall score is higher the min FPS is lower.

I can't find the pic right now but highest GPU score for Firestrike was 96xx but overall score was lower then the 7720 from a lot lower score. it seems to hit a wall or something.

Anyways with pascal just being unveiled I am hoping for in a year or two mxm pascal card support! haha.

I also got lucky enough to pick up a barebone P370EM for 300ish so the hardware from my P150EM will migrate to the P370EM in a couple months. Looking forward to see how it is.

 

Sounds like you are having fun How many tests did you run? You can get variations from run to run.

 

Ya its interesting, but seeing minimal returns on the higher overclock is too bad though. I have run roughly 70 some Firestrike benches and half the amount for Heaven.

I also notice that even though my overall score in Heaven has increased, if I compare stock to my max overclock result the minimum FPS went from 20ish FPS, in stock form, to 15.9 FPS, in overclock form. So that is strange also.

 

It can be worth running graphs on the entire system (if you care enough to check) to see if maybe the CPU is doing something odd at those points.

 

Hmmm that is a good idea!

See if there is any correlation between those FPS dips and anything else in the system. I like it.

I will check it when I get a chance!

Thanks

 

Here you go:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/p150em-w-970m-driver-problem-win10.790165/

^^ That is why I had trouble with Win 10

In four months time I will be able to migrate my current P150EM hardware to the P370EM with 3820qm and at that time might try Win10 again. --> Of course I would prefer to have 980ms in SLI, but it woudn't be worth spending that much unless people start to sell them for cheap.

It is crazy to see how much difference there is between Kepler and Maxwell, I am playing my old games at ultra/high settings and getting great FPS, and to have my laptop still be relevant a few years down is great. I hope the P370EM will last just one more generation of GPU's though, if Polaris and Pascal Mobile MXM cards can also work I think I will be able to retire the P370EM very happily in a few years.

Cheers

 

It's an impressive difference between the two being on the same process that's for sure.

 

Bear in mind that there are no Clevo drivers for this model and Windows 10; you'll be leaning on the native Windows drivers.

 

yeah but you just use the windows 8.1 64 bit drivers and it's fine.

 

Did not actually consider that for some reason,

Thanks for the tip!

 

your welcome, it's what I do

 

That's okay; usually it's not a big deal. What I forgot to mention - and this may actually be more inhibiting - is that you'll need an appropriate BIOS version for Windows 10 as well. The BIOS versions that look something like xx.05.xx (where "x" represents a digit) should support Win 10. If you have something like xx.03.xx, that's meant for Windows 8(.1) or lower.

 

I wasn't using the Windows 10 sBIOS on my P377SM-A and it worked just fine. I even took the hotkey from the P6 as well as the airplane driver and no issues there either (only thing was it turned my power button color green but I've wanted to have a green power button for awhile and it always bugged me that Clevo doesn't let you change it while my M17xR1 let me change the colors of literally everything). What did they change in the sBIOS for 10? If it had anything to do with secure boot, I don't use that garbage and UEFI worked fine too.

 

That's good to hear! No, Secure Boot wasn't the issue. I wish I had a change log of some sort to provide a technical answer here. Going off of experience with support calls, certain drivers would not work (the most prevalent seemed to be the airplane mode and hotkey utility). Most everything else was okay, but minor idiosyncrasies were enough for some people to roll back.

 

Yes the aeroplane mode and some of the way the firmware/drivers/OS interacted changed slightly.

 

Update:

Steam Sales Rule!! Reason I say this is because 3DMark was for sale for $5, and according to this article:
http://videocardz.com/61272/3dmark-time-spy-supports-asynchronous-computing
I should also have access to the DX12 Benchmark when it comes out too.

I got a new high score! (This is only a benchmark setting, not for regular gaming!)
Core + 350
VRAM +450
CoreVoltage mV +100

GPU score: 9598 - Right in the 980m territory.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8946892

Only problem is that it runs hot. With just the FireStrike 1.1 benchmark it gets up to mid 80's - the problem is if I run a stress test the temps keep slowly creeping up and up, when it hit 90 and was only 5min on the stress test I stopped it. If I can find a way to properly cool the GPU this might be a theoretical setting I can run it at!

For now my gaming setting is:
Core +243
VRAM +363
CoreVoltage mV +25
GPU score: 9024
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8947490

Works great and is a nice boost is FPS!

Also regarding the problem I had with dips was just due to the power setting of laptop being on Balanced. . . DUHH!!

I have a idea for replacing the stock fan with a higher airflow one, and lapping the heatsink - I have a new heatsink from a p150sm and a copper heatsink for the CPU too, but again . . . got to wait till September till I get my hands on the 3820qm and P370em w/330w PSU! Then I don't have to worry about PSU restriction, play with cooling and see what I can push out of the 970m.

 

Small Update

New top score:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/9059830

GPU:9690
Total:7939 (so close to breaking 8k with the 3610qm!)

Seems like my current memory max is +543 - anything more and artifacts show up.

Also in contrast to when I started and I couldn't break +212 core on stock voltage and now I can run +230 on core with stock voltage..... ???

I wanna break 10k GPU!! haha.

Honestly I have more fun benching and seeing the numbers pop up after overclocking then playing any games. . . . sigh..

 

Drivers can impact what clocks you can reach

 

still on 362.00

But maybe I should update and see what kind of results I get!

I wonder if it makes any difference that I do all my bench marking on my external monitor?
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Update!

Updated to Win10 and successfully installed driver 368.39

For the fun of it ran a benchmark with +350 core, + 450 RAM and got a new high score!

GPU: 9735

Getting closer to that 10k mark!

 

To cool your laptop a bit, might be worth raising it up with some books or bottlecaps on each end.. This should help to reduce temps by a few C.. Also what thermal paste are you using? Get some IC Diamond lol..

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

Yup, been raising the rear for a while now... thanks for the thought. As for the paste, as mentioned in the 1st post I am using Artic Silver 5... but I have been thinking of trying some different thermal pastes after lapping the heatsink.

 

I DID IT!!!!! so pumped. Got my goal of breaking 8k overall with 3610qm and 10k for GPU!

970m w/ 3610QM Drivers v368.39
Core +354
VRAM +560
mV +100

Overall: 8029
GPU: 10037!!

Link: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/9486694

 

That are really nice scores, congrats!

Mine's can go no higher than +350/+480/+100mv in Firestrike (SLI), but didn't had the time to bench them separately. The (GPU-)heatsink from the P150SM will help you a ton getting lower temps! I would suggest using CLU or at least IC Diamond for GPU+CPU and Phobya 7W/mk Thermal Pads. Once done, you do not have to worry for a long time and bench the s*** out of your rig!

 

Thanks for the tips, I will try some of that. I know IC Diamond, I don't know "CLU & Phobya 7W/mk Thermal Pads" but if it keeps everything cool I will try it! Btw I did buy a P170SM-A heatsinks (copper CPU heatsink!) .. . . . but got a barebone p370em I might transfer the 970m into, so i hope it OC's just as well. We will see!

I couldn't get my VRAM past 543 and core past 350, then redid my paste, was able to tighten the cooler on better with washers and got my current score, still have to push it farther since I am not getting artifacts yet . . .but I did hit 91 degrees for a second on the TimeSpy (not Firestrike )benchmark.. .=[

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UPDATE:

New High score on Firestrike!

Overall: 8062
GPU: 10104!!

Link: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/9510693

Forgot exactly . . but +100mV +365core +580VRAM is roughly where it was, I will bench again at those specs and see if I get the same score this weekend when time allows. Even with these settings I am only hitting 81C - BUT! that is because firestrike is so short, on TimeSpy I probably couldn't complete the bench.